Conductive, injectable hydrogel equipped with tetramethylpyrazine regulates ferritinophagy and promotes spinal cord injury repair.

Abstract

Up to now, the clinical treatment of spinal cord injury (SCI) to recover the locomotion function, sensory function, and autonomic function of patients is a global medical challenge. In this study, based on the excellent effects of Tetramethylpyrazine (TMP) on regulating pathological micro-environment, we designed a new injectable conductive hydrogel consists of water-soluble polypyrrole (Ppy), agar, and TMP. The TMP@PA hydrogel has excellent physicochemical properties, bio-safety, and drug release ability, which can be injected into lesions in situ without secondary injury for SCI. Our in vivo and in vitro experiments have demonstrated that the TMP@PA hydrogel can not only fill the spinal cord cavity to reconstruct the electrical conduction pathway but also release TMP continuously to inhibit ferroptosis by regulating nuclear receptor coactivator 4 (NCOA4)-mediated ferritinophagy regulated by Yes-Associated Protein (YAP) to promote SCI repair. Collectively, TMP@PA hydrogel may be an effective tissue engineering scaffold to treat SCI with highly promising clinical applications.